ZBrushCentral

‘The Mantress’ - ‘Master and Servant’ entry:

Hi All,

I recently entered CG Talk’s ‘Master and Servant’ Challenge, and at the suggestion of
‘Pixologic,’ I’m starting a new thread here on my entry’s development (albeit a little late
in the day!)

Concept Story:
Many days had long since passed when a colony of caring mantises living on the edge
of a forgotten tropical forest had adopted an abandoned baby girl. They had taken her in
as their own, weaning and nurturing her, and teaching the child their ways.

Time went by, and the girl matured quickly and spectacularly into an unusual specimen
of womanhood, later exhibiting many of those habits so peculiar to her mantis’ progeny.

After some years, her two younger step-brothers, after experiencing the death of their
immediate family, vowed to undertake the role of ‘servants’ to their beloved sister; their
mission being to find her a suitable human male partner, in the hope that their
diminished colony might yet survive…

Chris Baker '05

Being very new to ZBrush, my progression towards the final image will be very much a
‘learn-as-you-go’ type experience, and in my muddling through the learning curve, any
comments and advice from you guys would be very much appreciated :slight_smile:

[color=wheat]My planned pipeline:

Modeling - ZBrush and Maya

Texturing - ZBrush

Displacement Mapping - ZBrush to Maya

Shaders, lighting, rendering - Mental Ray for Maya

Hair – Shave and a Haircut (Maya)

Cloth – Syflex (Maya)

I’ll be maintaining updates along with any settings etc.and have included a number of
previous image updates here… first off, the concept sketches:

cheers

Chris

![Concept Sketches.jpg|484x890](upload://hTzT303bcRbdH1MM8DDY99igOy6.jpeg)

These next few are the ‘Mantress’ ZSphere and PolyMesh modeling updates, in preparation for ‘Poly Grouping’ and poses via morphing -

Chris

![two.jpg|1020x458](upload://bLDxqUUxamxHpRgInvkfzgMdzgz.jpeg)![three.jpg|680x595](upload://4xLL4SYPLgSioDzKehiXFAaiUKQ.jpeg)![four.jpg|512x382](upload://uzXseV55bcXqNp7TEiJkPVQaggH.jpeg)![five.jpg|757x435](upload://4bzQiFivPeSSB9haG1skbAXNzTD.jpeg)

Started on the basics for texturing:
Her body is first morphed into position (along with her wings and eyes), and
the Poly Groups that might be necessary as divisions get higher later are worked out.

The base texture for her body is AUV tiled at 4096 x 4096, and the wings are planar-mapped for the most part :slight_smile:

Chris

![six.jpg|1024x1116](upload://1cf8EpVsC9lEoxaJczlWwGaq13w.jpeg)![seven.jpg|740x819](upload://6SjOlTxzoktVAdE8F7SwSlfF6fJ.jpeg)![eight.jpg|740x891](upload://sq3Ms01ieQ4fDGwtMT8BXIOCROA.jpeg)

She has the most beautiful face. And the posing is so expressive. Good luck!

coming out great! did you model the head in a different 3D package, if yes, how did you weld it on the zbrush model?

Thanks, Moochie - very kind!
and volk23; I modelled the head in Maya, making sure that the vertices’ alignment was sufficiently accurate for a simple combine there also (rather than doing a ‘Connect Mesh’ in ZB):slight_smile:

Chris

very nice so far !!!

I love the pose and the style you used to model your character!!!
good work !!
:sunglasses: :+1:

Way cool!:wink:

beautiful style and intersting pipeline.Superb:+1:

May I ask a silly question. In the Zsphere model of the hand, how is the red fading, and what zscript or utility is that you are using? I mean this picture by the way. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. This is a very nice model you have created. I can’t wait to see more.Question.jpg

[color=Wheat]Drummer - Nice of you; cheers :slight_smile:
[color=Wheat]Jason - Thanks!
Mr micro - Cheers, dude! I’m hoping I can carry the intended pipeline off OK :stuck_out_tongue:

[color=Wheat]DMerchen - Thanks for the compliment :slight_smile:
The plug-in is TV Eyes [color=Wheat]‘XYZ Adjust 2’ - kindly made available on his thread here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=3405&page=1&pp=15&highlight=tveyes

cheers !

Chris

Hey my dear friend, outstanding work and fresh style. See you in CGTalk

Best regards

cool character indeed. can’t wait to see her fully textured and with that expression in her face , really disliking what she has at her disposal as men.:smiley:

Very well done - I like it a lot! :slight_smile:

All the best for completion! :+1:

Cheers

well you already know what I think, but I thought I’d say it once again, you’re a clever sod Chris…you just have to finish it now :smiley:

all the best

Brian

I already told you but I will repeat here: fantastic work with the ZSpheres and great character design man! Keep working because you HAVE to finish your entry :+1:

Good luck mate,
Kris

Nice modeling. I was curious how you did your ZSpheres. I did a tutorial on hands located
here: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=23136 and I wanted to compare practices.

Cheers,
-TL74

Lovely control of those fiddly zspheres and fine modeling.:+1:
The developement of the character seems to be heading from kinky into a more elfin quality.
Good luck with your entry.

FlyingP and Antropus are right man…this is so lovely and smart. U have to finish this …:wink:

Hi guys!

Thanks for the overwhelmingly kind replies and comments :+1:
I've quite bit 'on my plate' at the moment, but snatched a spare hour yesterday and half an hour 

today to prepare another update, which’ll be up shortly… talk about ‘time being the enemy’ :roll_eyes:

ilusiondigital: Nice one, buddy; and thanks :slight_smile:
Nemoid:

really disliking what she has at her disposal as men.
:laughing:
DaveG: Thanks, Dave; kinda muddling thru’ bit by bit :smiley:
flyingP: Cheers, doing my best, Brian :slight_smile:
Antropus: Thanks Kris! I’m pushing the ‘wakening-hour parameters’ to the max right now :stuck_out_tongue:
Thanks Tom - I think my hands/ZSphere configuration is pretty much identical to yours, but your ones are much neater than mine :confused:
boozy floozie: Very kind of you :thumbsup: yeah; though it’d be nice if I can manage to retain a bit of her ‘kinky’ attributes’ :smiley:
DimitrisLiatsos: Thanks, man - I’m doing my best to reach the target - promise :stuck_out_tongue:

Chris